“This is why all of the cut was a clear navigation, though there is more than adequate room for moorings and passage of the largest barges that can navigate the Grand Union canal.”
All of the cut up to the Boatman’s Institute was and is a public right of navigation to be kept clear for passage. That doesn’t preclude the exercise of rights to moor boats to private property so long as that does not impede the public right, but it does preclude building STRUCTURES into the navigation, which is the substance of the objection – not the mooring of boats per se. Even with no boats moored at all, the pontoons and “lead in” structure will remain permanent obstructions.
The issue for the BCC is not even so much the degree of available space taken up, but the specific location; the expert reports made clear that even obstructing half the navigation closer to the Thames Lock was not much of a problem – the problem was, however, significantly acute when a lesser degree of obstruction occurred at the entering-in point at the Thames and Brent junction. It’s a matter of manoeuvring leeway where cross currents occur, exacerbated [so far as this scheme is concerned] during ebbing tides.
“The way to 'develop' the Brentford waterways is to inhabit them but the constant resistance and enmity of the local authority, to residential boats, prevents and inhibits this.”
There is no enmity towards residential boats within the local authority, as any perusal of the newly adopted Brentford Area Action Plan will demonstrate. It is simply the case that the positioning of mooring sites whether residential or recreational is to be limited to those areas that will not interfere with other water uses such as pleasure or commercial navigation. Principally, the policy is to encourage ‘offline’ moorings to free up ‘online’ space. It is worth noting that that is in strict accord with the national policy and advice of British Waterways Board.
It should also be recognised that two separate though nearby applications were submitted by Hither Green, and that the BCC recommended approval of the proposals within Soaphouse Creek [albeit with recommendations that the pontoons were overdone, which limited the boat numbers and manoeuverability].